


Frostbitten

by shopfront



Category: The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Growing Up, Magic, Multi, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: No matter how they'd wished to, they couldn't spend their entire lives at Mistlethwaite and in the garden... or could they?
Relationships: pre-Colin Craven/Mary Lennox/Dickon Sowerby
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Frostbitten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [m_madeleine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_madeleine/gifts).



“I wish we could always be just like this, like when we were children,” Colin said from his spot only half-on the blanket beside her. He had his arms spread out, one hand continually digging down into the frosty soil or combing restlessly through the last of the grass while the other played with Mary's hair.

Mary started laughing at him until he sat up and leaned over her, glaring. His sleeve was already beginning to stain with mud and dirt from where the ground was already bare, but he didn't seem to have even noticed it yet.

“No, I mean it,” he continued with a huff, though his crankiness softened more the longer he looked at her. “I wish your governess would go away already, _and_ my tutor. Then if only Dickon had more time off from working with old Ben, we might spend our days in here forever. Wouldn’t that be perfect?”

“It’s not like we'll be able to lay about out here like this for too much longer, anyway. It’s getting too cold even despite all the leaves being gone and there being nothing left to block the sunlight,” Mary replied. “We’d freeze!”

Grumbling, Colin laid back down. “Still. I wish I was a Lord already; perhaps Father could abdicate, like a King might. Then even if the magic doesn't work it would already be up to me whether we had tutors or governesses at Mistlethwaite and I could send them all away.”

Mary giggled. “Maybe he could just disinherit you in favour of taking Dickon as his ward, and then we could all have horrid teachers together if we must have them at all.”

One of the spare blankets came flying at her for that, covering her face and momentarily blocking out the whistle of the wind above the hedges. By the time she’d fought her way free, promising painful retribution all the while, she found Dickon standing at their feet grinning at them.

“I can’t take you two anywhere, now can I?” was all he said as he tugged the blanket the rest of the way off Mary and wrapped it around his own shoulders as he sat down.

Colin kicked out at him, almost hitting him in the shin except Dickon caught his ankle first and held him fast. Mary watched them stare each other down, Dickon’s thumb moving soothingly back and forth across the skin exposed beneath the rucked up hem of Colin’s pants. Colin just watched him back steadily, like he was one of Dickon’s hypnotised animals.

“We’ll behave ourselves today, won’t we, Colin?” Mary asked cheekily when the silence stretched on. “We wouldn’t want to waste Dickon’s afternoon off, not when Ben was kind enough to agree he should have one.”

Dickon only grinned wider when Colin shakily nodded his head, still looking at Dickon as Mary started to laugh again.

*

_“This isn’t like any spell I’ve ever heard of,” Mary said skeptically as Dickon and Colin whispered to the bulbs before planting them._

_“Why does that matter, Mary?” Dickon asked, not pausing in his work._

_Colin stopped and frowned at her though. “I think it’s just like what we’ve always done.”_

_“No, this is like the planting that we’ve always done. Our magic has always been done with chanting and things. This is entirely different,” Mary replied, frowning back at him twice as hard._

_“Well it won’t work if you don’t believe in it, so maybe you’d better stay over there then!” Colin snapped at her as he turned back to his little pile of bulbs, bringing another up to his face so he could whisper to it. Huffing, Mary half-turned away, toying with the ribbon tied around her wrist and determined not to be tempted to leave her spot on the path and join them now._

_Dickon finished his half of the border first. After pressing the dirt down with one last murmur, he got to his feet and headed straight for her. He spoke to her equally as softly, like she was one of the slumbering bulbs he wanted to encourage to grow. “What does it matter, really? Perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn’t. It’s just like when you still used to plant the lilies upside down by accident and we hoped they’d turn themselves right way up without us. It makes him feel better. He's worrying himself that you'll have to marry somebody else one day and we'll lose you.”_

_Mary stomped her foot as she hissed back at him. “I don’t care about making him feel better over some silly little magic spell that won’t even work. He’s not the one who Uncle will be sending away when it fails!”_

_Dickon’s voice followed her when she spun away, calling her name as she ran._

_*_

“Miss Lambert’s gone off and secretly engaged herself to Mr Parks,” Martha announced as she opened the door with the breakfast tray.

Already awake and dressed, Mary turned away from her mirror with her fingers suddenly still and tangled in her partially arranged hair. “What do you mean?”

“Your governess and Mr Colin’s tutor, Miss Mary,” Martha said brightly as she put the tray down with a clunk. Mary’s usual porridge didn’t so much as jiggle in its bowl, but a little bit of tea spilled out beneath the lid of the pot because of the jostling. A curl of steam rose from the spill, clear in the frosty morning air and what faint light struggling through the clouds to reach the cold windows of Mary’s bedroom.

“Yes, I know who they are,” Mary said impatiently. Dropping her hair entirely, she crossed the room to grasp Martha by the arms.

Martha easily dodged her however, and turned her around in the same movement so she could reach Mary’s hair as she explained. “The whole house is in an uproar. Their rooms were empty when the maid went to wake Miss Lambert this morning. All her things were gone and her bed not slept in, just a note on the pillow but silly little Betty didn’t spot it at first. Why, we thought she might have been kidnapped or maybe even spirited away by the fairies during the night!”

Mary snorted and rolled her eyes even though Martha couldn’t see her. Martha tugged a little harder on a lock of her hair, but didn’t pause in her story.

“Then one of the footmen went to ask Mr Parks to join the servants in checking the grounds, in case she’d gone off on foot early in the morning and could be fetched back; but guess what, Miss Mary?”

“What?” Mary asked, smothering a smile under her hand so Martha wouldn't stop to tickle her and make her laugh more.

“Why, Mr Parks was gone as well! His note was a little easier to find, which is when I went to search Miss Lambert’s rooms myself. What do I find? Why naught but a matching note in her own hand saying they’ve gone off to be married and won’t be returning.”

Finally breaking down, Mary started laughing with relief and then had to shriek as she tried and failed to escape Martha’s wriggling fingers.

“I suppose that little spell of yours Dickon told me about must have worked after all,” she said after she relented and Mary had dropped breathlessly into a chair to start her breakfast.

Mary just hummed a negative around her first mouthful of porridge. “It wasn’t _my_ spell… but perhaps it did,” she relented when Martha did nothing but watch her, silently smirking and making her opinion on the matter perfectly clear.

*

_“You’ll both leave me soon enough, you know you will,” Dickon said._

_“We would never-”_

_“You’ll have no choice, Colin. You know your father’s become convinced Mary’s too old for governesses, and eventually you’ll also outgrow your tutors and be sent off to learn something to keep you occupied until it's time for you to take over the Manor.”_

_“I don’t care about society, or marriage, or any of those other things Uncle’s always hinting at,” Mary cried, clutching at Dickon’s sleeve. “Even if he sends me away, I promise to be terrible at all of it until they have to give in and send me home again.”_

_“And I don’t want a proper profession! I can be just as bad at things as Mary can. I’ll get sent back, too,” Colin said, joining her in reaching for Dickon._

_“Well, we all know that. We remember those tantrums you used to throw when you was a little one,” Dickon said with a chuckle and a pointed expression that turned Colin’s cheekbones pink. Carefully, he detached their fingers, just as gently as he always did with Soot’s claws whenever he got himself tangled in their scarves. “No, I just hope you find something you love as much as I’ve enjoyed learning from Mr Weatherstaff, and I hope Mary finds something to like in that city of hers, too. I can’t imagine their gardens will be nearly as fine as ours is, but that’ll be just the thing to stop her from forgetting about this one.”_

_Mary pressed her lips together until they started to hurt and tears stopped welling in her eyes. “It’s not my city, it never will be. I don’t care how many fancy parties they have there,” she said mullishly._

_“Hey now, don’t say that,” Dickon said, dropping her fingers to reach for her face. Colin went stiff beside them as Dickon turned Mary’s face towards himself, so he reached for Colin and did the same thing. “You’ll both be back one day, when we’re all older or when you’re visiting. You don’t need t’worry. I ain’t going nowhere when I know that.”_

_*_

“Do you think it worked a little too well?” Colin asked one day.

Following Colin and Dickon’s gaze, Mary also turned to look at the long, winding circle of uncovered dirt that enclosed their favourite clearing. Slumbering beneath it was the little flower border they’d planted, just waiting to pop up in the spring.

“Maybe,” she answered hesitantly. She reached for him when Colin sighed and rubbed a hand at his temple, still staring. “Do you think everyone will re-discover us again in the spring, when things start growing again? Maybe they’re all frozen out there, like the ground in winter.”

“He’s never stayed away this long since we were children.”

“He’s probably just busy. He did say he had business in town that might keep him there for awhile,” Mary replied as she slipped her hand into his, shuffling forward until she could lean her head against his shoulder.

Colin’s sideways glance at her was skeptical, though his eyes lingered on her and his expression softened like it always did. “It doesn’t take this long to arrange a townhouse for your social engagements, or a place in a the law for me.”

“We could dig them all up again if you’re reconsidering,” Dickon said. "The ground has starting to freeze properly about now, but we could manage it with a bit of help and hard work if we're quick."

Mary and Colin answered as one. “No.”

Leaves crunched behind them as Dickon shifted closer, until Mary could feel his warmth even through her dress and coat as she leaned back against him. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and then shifted a little - probably reaching for Colin as well, she realised.

“No,” she repeated more confidently. “We’ll just wait a little longer. It’s not been so long between visitors that we can be sure it’s the magic yet.”

“We only asked the garden to send away people who would cause us unhappiness. Father would never-,” Colin said, then stopped himself before starting again. “Keeping him away forever would make us unhappy, too. We can wait.”

*

_A warm hand clamped across Mary’s mouth, muffling her laughter as she was pulled to the ground. Dickon shushed her, still laughing himself, and his breath was warm on her ear as she fumbled with her blindfold._

_“Miss Lennox!” came the cry again, only slightly muffled as her irate governess continued searching through the maze next to their little clearing._

_Finally the bit of cloth came free and once Mary's eyes had adjusted, blinking, to the sunlight, she realised she was looking straight across the clearing at Colin._ _He wasn’t laughing with them, however._

_“I wish he’d stop it,” Mary said sadly as she stared back at him._

_“Don’t fret over it. We’ll just have to be gentle with him, and keep him safe in the earth like one of your bulbs until he feels like poking his head out.”_

_Snorting, Mary broke away from Colin's stare to give Dickon an unimpressed look. “He’s not some delicate spring shoot, Dickon.”_

_Dickon just gave her a vague smile in return, his expression all genial, unexplained mystery. “Isn’t he though, Mary?”_


End file.
